PMI Code Of Ethics: The Challenger Disaster

The Challenger disaster happened on the morning of January 28, 1986, at the Kennedy space center in Florida. “Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster” portrays not only the devastating event that caused the death of astronauts in the space shuttle but also covers the PMI Code of Ethics violations in multiple sections.

For any project, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is the final step before the product goes live and this should have been the case for the space shuttle mission as well. Allan McDonald had requested the engineering team to research and evaluate the safest lowest temperature acceptable for the launch, but that communication was lost within the team. The lack of open communication is one of the PMI Code of Conduct violations (PMI Code of Ethics 2-3).

Per the PMI Code of Ethics, “responsibility is our duty to take ownership for the decisions we make or fail to make, the actions we take or fail to take, and the consequences that result” (PMI Code of Ethics, 2-3). The vice president of the project (stakeholder) failed to take on a decision in the best interests of society and public safety. Even after the NASA engineer's and management's statement on the risk of flying below a certain temperature, the VP was adamant about finding something more concrete and flying the space shuttle, resulting in multiple people's death.

Every successful project completion’s last step is lessons learned. This step provides the project manager and project team to look back and evaluate the risk involved, assumptions, and remedies for those risks. Similar was the case with the Space Shuttle Challenger. McDonald mentions that the engineering team at NASA gave the warning based on their last mission, where the temperature was the major issue. The management team ignored the warning and put the stakeholder's satisfaction above the safety of the